From Fisher-Price To Rennsport

His mother’s discovery of a “time capsule” toy car transports the grown-up Dr Kong back to his childhood.

MY phone has begun to slow down. Badly. The battery is also haemorrhaging at an unstoppable, alarming rate, meaning that I rarely go anywhere untethered to a power cord, and live in constant anxiety at being punted back to the dark ages by a flashing red battery symbol.

People have told me that deleting the gigabytes of accumulated detritus in my phone’s photography folder might salvage some life yet from the device, but I am loath to. Especially not after last Saturday, when I experienced the avalanche of intense, bittersweet emotions brought about by this strange, very human thing called nostalgia.

My mum was clearing out the old apartment where I had spent my childhood years. Deep within its dusty bowels, she had unearthed a yellowed, flaky but very much still intact plastic Fisher-Price racecar.

It is this adorable, little time capsule of memories that she brandishes, grinning from ear to ear, as my wife and I come down the stairs on the way to a lunch reservation we are already late for, but now would never make it to.

Suddenly I am a child again. Suddenly my mum’s kyphotic back is a little straighter, her smile is bracketed with smooth, youthful skin and her hair roots are no longer flecked with grey.